Hear that silence? That’s Pastor Ken Hutcherson not speaking against the freedom-to-marry-affirming Referendum 74 because Preserve Marriage Washington burned its bridges with him and most of Washington’s anti-gay luminaries when they seized control of the issue from the locals back in February.

As a result PMW, the local arm of the Washington, D.C.-based National Organization for Marriage (NOM), is having to reach clear across the nation to Maryland to tap Bishop Harry Jackson to play the Homophobic Black Pastor role usually filled by Hutcherson in Washington. Jackson is a NOM insider paid to help NOM drive a wedge between gays and blacks.

Apparently it wasn’t an oversight that in his sermon this past Sunday, Hutcherson mentioned his work on I-1192, the locally-backed anti-freedom to marry measure that failed to get on the ballot, but didn’t breathe a word about the PMW-controlled referendum that did.

There’s still four weeks to go; I’m sure we’ll hear from him in one way or another, even if he isn’t aligned with PMW/NOM. I can’t believe that a turf war will really cause Rev. Hutcherson to become less homophobic or shut his mouth on the topic.